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Men of a Certain Age by Kate Mossman review – close encounters with charismatic male rockers


A journalist’s bracingly honest account of interviews with musicians from Brian May to Shaun Ryder

The book features 19 encounters with ageing male musicians including Shaun Ryder, Bruce Hornsby, Jeff Beck, Ray Davies, Sting, Dave Gahan, Jon Bon Jovi, Nick Cave and Terence Trent D’Arby. In Mossman’s bleak yet fascinating interview with the Soft Machine co-founder at his home in France, Kevin Ayers drinks two bottles of wine, plays some songs in the street outside his house and then, shockingly, tries to sleep with her. This prompts an altercation between Ayers and his manager, with the latter shouting: “It’s not 1967, Kevin!” Paul O’Neill, the man behind the madly successful prog rock act Trans-Siberian Orchestra, takes Mossman’s hand, puts it inside his leather jacket and “press[es] my fingers around the thick, bobbly grip of a Glock semi-automatic pistol”.

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Kate Mossman